Ramaladni

I'm up for the challenge! Could you show the original Japanese?

I have to say that I like Zaka's meme localization. It serves the basic purpose of a translation - to give the reader the same or a similar experience a native would have had reading the original. I personally wouldn't want to see random kanji on an english translation unless it was plot relevant or had some kind of meaning, and I suppose the same would be for most people. Actually, I'd guess that hardly anyone who would read this knows what an ateji even is. Maybe 5% of your audience at most. It doesn't have to be word by word exactly what Zaka wrote, but he turned something that most people would glance over into a decent gag and I think that's more in the right track. While they're just a few lines, it's something nice to keep in mind as part of your translation philosophy, I believe.

I like how the synopsis spoils Touch lol. I'll probably watch it eventually, although I'm worried I might miss out on some references and such.

There are such efforts, however small: https://vndb.org/v11520 https://vndb.org/v3249 https://vndb.org/v11705 The day might yet come where the medium really takes off in the West, although I wouldn't want books to go away. This conversation reminds me of the time when the bookstore at a shopping mall closed down, with plans for the space to be used for a extra cinema auditorium - an analogy for the obsolescence of the medium, perhaps. As for EGS, that's probably because those games have dating sim/galge elements. The perfect example is Suikoden V, the only Suikoden game listed, presumedly because it has an affinity points system. Idolm@ster games are essentially idol management games, where you have to take care of raising your heroine's stats. Plenty of ADV style text too.

I'm pleased to know that you found this to be interesting, and that you already had some knowledge of these games - rather unexpected. About Lolita, refer to this post. It's more so that the meaning of "lolicon" back in the 80s and 90s was different, it changed over time, and so did the characters. The term "visual novel" does exist in Japan, as does "digital novel". However, they usually refer to them as adventure or erotic games (eroge for short). They consider everything to be a game, as it should be, since they're all pieces of software. Because of this, there are eroge that aren't considered visual novels by western definition. The problem with this is that there are extremely important games not documented by vndb, like one of the first dating sims to ever be localized (https://vndb.org/t12262), but there is space left for five minutes troll games made with Ren'py. On the other side, you have EGS (Erogamescape, the Japanese eroge database) that lists especially text-heavy RPGs, or things like the Idolm@ster games... Perfect examples of being too exclusive and too inclusive. That's a problem with Japanese otaku who want their games to be as long as possible. They want fandiscs, they want spin-offs, sequels. For me, when I finish reading a book, and if it's a good book, I'm moving on to the next one, not exactly wishing for more. Unless it's a really, really good story, I'd rather keep things fresh with a new scenario and set of characters, but that's just me. Personally, I dislike unnecessary padding and filler. As for alternative versions, eroge, just like any other game, receive updates or re-releases over time (updated art, OS compatibility, resolution, music, extra scenarios, extra voice acting, etc.). It's not all that uncommon, and in most cases I'd recommend playing the latest version. However, not all updates can be considered improvements - the new art could be awful, the new scenarios might not fit with the story, the voice acting might suck, the ending might change completely to a terrible one, and so on... It's really important to do your proper research to be sure that you are playing the best version, or at least the one that you believe will get the most enjoyment out of. Another point to consider as English speakers is translation quality and such - whoever said that a bad TL is better no TL either doesn't care for the game or has absolutely no standards. Censorship is an even bigger issue - removing entire characters because they might be deemed ofensive, removing sexually suggestive text, altering CGs, etc. Anyway, I'm sorry for derailing the thread. I'm sure that you'll be well-served with what the other users recommended so far. Like clephas said, Visual Novels are very genre heavy, each genre having their own tropes and commonalities. With time, you too will find your own preferences.

Classic, as in genre defining and revolutionary for the times? It is important to note that these not only face the hardware limitations of the times, but are reflective of what the audience was interested in. I will also not talk about "visual novels" since that's an english term, but eroge (erotic games). Lolita Yakyuuken (PC-88) probably the first eroge, and most certainly the first loli game (which has a different meaning nowadays). Alice is another text adventure lolige. Strawberry Porn Game Series (PC-88) an erotic graphic adventure game initially marketed as an aid for couples to learn sexual positions, and for one of the first depictions of sexual conduct in full graphics. Moreover, it was developed by Koei! Custer's Revenge (Atari 2600) is one of the first games where the sole objective is to well, rape women. And thus, should be considered the origin of eroge involving sexual assault. Mari-chan's Close Call (PC-88) a sadistic game where you act as Mari-chan's bodyguard, all the while she is being chased by all kinds of assassins and crazy stalkers. After each encounter, Mari loses one piece of clothing, being naked by the end of the game. It's an undressing (as a reward) type of game. Oh, and would you look at that, it was made by Enix, everyone's beloved company. Tokyo Nanpa Street (PC-88) quite possibly the origin of dating sims - nanpa referring to the act of flirting with/trying to pick up/hitting on women. Rather than just finding women to have sex with, here you actually have to pick the correct choices to be able to smooth them over. Then you have Fairy Dust 's games, which are based on some of the first H-OVAs. Some of the characters are voiced by the REAL idols (look at Lemon Angel), so you can only imagine what it was like to listen to your favorite idol live and then fap to her moans on your computer back in your basement. If you noticed the Escalation games released by Fairy Dust and thought of the games published by JAST...you're on the right track. They are remakes of the original games, but JAST won't tell you this so no one will know the story behind these games. Super Real Mahjong a series of undressing mahjong games, that originated on the Arcade. Yup, that's right, you could undress women in public...without going to jail! Then, you could think of the Dragon Knight series, combining RPG with sexual elements, the game being created by Elf, one of the most important eroge companies. Rance 1 - the series that spawned an entire franchise, with new games still being made today. A fantasy ADV/RPG that belongs to Alice Soft, an eroge company probably about as important as Elf. To round them up, you have Fairytale with their own works mixing RPG with sexual elements, as well as more plot-heavy mystery/detective work games. Skipping forward, you have Elf's Dokyuusei, taking the concept of nanpa and affection systems to create what was considered to be a true masterpiece. You don't start dating the heroines after one or two conversations - you have to meet their several times as you trigger events and develop your relationship, finding out when and where they show up on the map, and learning their patterns/schedule. Compared to Tokyo Nanpa Street, there is a greater reward and emphasis on visiting the same heroine multiple times. Dokyuusei spawned an entire series of games, anime series, live-action films and more. A true classic dating sim. If you believe that RPG/ADV hybrids and text adventure games and shouldn't be considered VNs, well, I think it's important to consider the origin. This about covers the PC-88 era. Now for PC-98... I'm too tired to go on, and I'm not even sure if this is what you wanted. Then again, I now realize that this might be too much to take in for a beginner. Even if I told you, for example, that One ~Kagayaku Kisetsu e~ is THE game that really spun the wheels for the "nakige" genre, Clannad is probably the better game (and the one that everyone knows/plays). If you mean classic as in extremely popular and that stands the test of time, sorting vndb/EGS by popularity ranking or rating would give you the answers you seek. Like, literally taking a look at this list gives you a good idea of some of the "must read" titles. First play the good games that are popular to create a foundation, and later research a particular genre that you're interested in. Old games aren't just for everyone either, even if there are concepts and characters that are as good today as they were back then.

@adamstan Oh, now I realize you're the same guy from vndb. Thanks for chiming in there, the thread was getting a bit messy. I believe that making such a ruckus over one slightly censored CG (while keeping many other suggestive CGs intact, including one with pantsu in full view) makes the people who fight the harder battles look bad in comparison. Although it's not surprising that people distrust Spike Chunsoft after the fiasco that was Zanki Zero. I'm not sure how much they cut out from the original H-scenes - to be honest, I've been trying to stay away from this release as much as possible, so I haven't really looked much into it. Going from what other people told me, and seeing CGs such as this one, it leads me to believe that they still exist in some form. There are other highly suggestive CGs, so I think it's a very fair assumption. Frankly, the H-scenes were the worst part of YU-NO. I've been reconsidering my position on this matter and decided that we're probably better off without them - some are downright respulsive, others are demeaning/disrespectful for the characters, others are completely normal run-of-the-mill H-scene. I, however, wouldn't want to be without H-scenes/nudity for the one or two scenes that are really good and had a high emotional impact on me when I read this a few years ago. The remake has received high ratings (currently 83 for PSV and 84 for PS4 versions on EGS) so it's probably good. Even if there are no honorifics and such, I can trust this to be a good translation, if it were only as good as 428's. The artstyle puts me off, mostly because some of the characters look five years younger than they are supposed to, or because I feel a lot of personality was lost in the change, for certain characters. The point-and-click system seems to be adapted for modern sensibilities and for those people who don't want to glance at a walkthrough every five seconds. The protagonist is fully voiced, whereas this was already a thing on the Sega Saturn release (he was partially voiced). I'm glad to see that people are showing love for the original version. If you end up playing it, I hope you stick with it despite its annoyances or flaws. At least for me, I felt that the journey was worth it. If you decide to play the new version, that's completely fine too. Not everyone has the patience to handle such terrible gameplay (good concept, extremely annoying in practice).

[ttps://vndb.org/v14265 - Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai is a pure love story focused on following the different stages of your relationship with your heroine of choice.

So, what VNs have you read/are reading and what type of genres do you like? Any favorites?

One of us, one of us!

I only played the first game.

Please don't say culture. That makes it sound like they are from a foreign land. It's just a country like any other.

What's your OS? Also, do you have the correct patch? https://www.dropbox.com/s/ctwxfx1497bxmck/Kikokugai - Reichin Rinrinshan - English Patch.rar?dl=0 The readme included reads as follows: Japan as system locale and language for non-unicode programs are a given. You might want to reinstall the game if you weren't in JP locale when you installed it. And like Seraphim said, you'll most certainly want to install K-Lite Codec Pack, update .NET Framework, DirectX, etc.

The remake features high quality artwork in higher resolution, lots of effects and animations, and full voice-acting. The H-scenes are intact, the CGs were only slightly censored. It's also the same translation, made by THE Makoto, with very slight changes. In conclusion, you should play the remake (15+ version).

True Remembrance, Kikokugai.

Anything by: https://vndb.org/p539 Although it's quite nuki-focused, I find it's pretty good when it comes to roleplaying. https://vndb.org/p3276 These games have better characterization and more of a healing feeling. https://vndb.org/v1286 I guess eden* fits the bill perfectly though. https://vndb.org/v860 I love the Galaxy Angel trilogy. There are two "loli" characters, one of them being voiced by one of my favorite anime seiyuu of all time. The most fun part is the character interactions. https://vndb.org/v646 Two of Ayakashibito's heroines, including the central heroine could be considered "loli". It's a story I'm quite fond of, despite its flaws. I believe you have to do all routes to unlock the True Route with Suzu, though. Can't really think of anything else right now, as "good story" is quite ambiguous. What did you like about Maitetsu? Was it its in-depth disucssions about train stuff, the character interactions, or perhaps that you can "throw in your coal" inside a 120cm tall train-girl's "furnace"?

Whatever, none of what you say matters and won't deter me from reading and enjoying this. Having such kamige translated by Conjueror, just imagine something being absolutely perfect and adding another layer of perfection on top! Though in all honesty, whenever I see a thread about some new game I don't care about, I tend to not bother posting. Don't you think it's wrong to talk the game down when you haven't played it or know anything besides the synopsis, if all you have is your educated guess? In fact, I don't think I've ever really played any game with this May-December Romance type of plot, so I'm quite looking forward to it.

I'm sorry to say, but no such thing exists... How about https://vndb.org/v21552 , although it seems it will be localized soon.

Just thought I'd mention that ITHVNR and ITH 3.0 (with windows10 fix) work just fine on Windows10 and I'd recommend having different text-hooking programs in case one doesn't work. Have been loving Textractor ever since I started trying it out though, don't have any complaints.

Well, I didn't want to be that guy, but I felt I should say something given that this has gotten nothing but positive comments and no real criticism, good or bad, so far. I'm sorry, but I just can't like this. You're taking a perfectly fine game and porting it to Ren'py while destroying everything unique about it, I just find this to be disrespectful to the original work. Fixing misTLs and translating what was left untranslated? Sure, I'd say that's awesome. This game was translated 23 years ago, there were different standards back then, JAST was just starting out and perhaps not the most qualified team was working on it, but this was literally one of the first steps for translated eroge. While it totally wouldn't be good enough nowadays, I think it's wrong to hate on the translation or a few rewrites. I see it as a as something left behind from JAST's humble beginnings. Fixing the names is pretty cool, considering the furigana was given for the names, I can only imagine that the translator had to rush to meet deadlines or that this project itself was a risky bet from the Japanese developers (so the priority was speed). Adding alternate tracks, mosaic toggle and such are all cool bonuses and that's what they should be - nothing more, nothing less. I like fiddling with these options myself, so I'm sure most people will find it to be a warm welcome. Maybe people would appreciate something like a JP/EN language toggle if that is even possible, but sounds like too much work. Adding CGs or tachi-e from other games that don't even have anything to do with Sakura no Kisetsu or Tiare makes no absolute sense. It'd be a completely different story if they were unused assets, but they weren't there to begin with, and they don't fit in there. I mean, I've seen similar projects that make bold choices, but they always keep it optional. Just think what a mess translation projects would be if people did just whatever they wanted. You also took the original, beautiful pixel art and uh...smoothened it out, or whatever you may call it, and completely destroyed it. At the end of the day, this is an originally PC-98 game and should be reminded as such. This is not to say that the JAST Memorial Edition is good either. In fact, it looks horrible, mostly because of the "blurry background" window border that makes it hard to look at, that and the font. Meanwhile the DOS version still exists (but it's not being sold anymore? not sure) and is perfectly playable on DOSBOX, even on fullscreen. So, why? And finally, the gameplay. Personally, I hate verb-based gameplay, even more so the kind where you have to pixel hunt to get to the next scene. But I think above anything else, it's wrong to remove a fundamental part of this game, turning it into something it wasn't. Playing Sakura no Kisetsu with verb-based gameplay might be a bit annoying in 2019, now that we're used to other types of gameplay, but by removing it, would we truly be playing Sakura no Kisetsu? I think not really. Just to make this clear, I don't think this is "awful". Fixing the text and giving the game a better treatment than it could've afforded to have at the time is great, and I wish the same could be done for older games that have an awful translation, such as Divi-dead. I really dislike what you've done with the art, even more so considering how out of place the pixel art character sprites feel, but maybe it'd be possible to include an option to keep the original pixel art, just like Memorial Edition does (at least that's what it says). I'm sure you are passionate about this project and deeply care about it, or else you wouldn't have put so much effort into it - something the regular user wouldn't be able to, unless they were adequately skilled and/or were extremely dedicated. I just think this is bad in terms of concept - you mocked JAST's message of wanting to preserve the original as much as possible, but you're doing quite the opposite based solely on whims, is how I feel. Anyway, this is just my opinion - feel free to do as you wish. However, I'm pretty sure this isn't very legal, considering JAST is still selling this game, but that's up to them to take action. I hope that my feedback, even the negative parts can be of help to you. Cheers.

I'm sure the Chinese market is very profitable, perhaps in some cases even more so than the western market if you take in the closeness of the languages and ease of translation (according to what JP>CN translator friends have told me, anyway). Even some western localization companies such as JAST have started releasing CN translations. In return, you have to sacrifice sexual content or aim for all-ages games only, which leads in to my second point. I fear that more companies will follow the business model of developers like Lose, where the H-scenes exist only as "what-if" scenarios and are accessible through a menu. Well, just think about this, if the game is written in a way that the H-scenes don't have a need to be there, why should they exist in the first place and why should I bother reading them? But my original post was more about japanese developers purposely avoiding certain type of content such as loli, incest, rape, hypnosis and so on, because it would be rejected by western values (and payment processors). You don't even need to go that far, for example, SolPress's Newrin's Steam release was rewritten to not contain sexual suggestive conversations or dirty jokes. Hello Goodbye's CGs had to be censored as the game was banned presumedly because of a few panty shots. Things do seem to be changing, as Miel/Norn nukige are sold on Steam without being cut or censored, but school-settings are still too risky. Not say that I have anything against all-ages games or less school settings, but yeah. Just some food for thought, I guess.

It's an interesting post but there's a few false equivalents. Such as, this company is successful, so it means that their marketing/business strategy is the recipe for success. Well, without sales figures it's quite difficult to tell for certain, but I'd say these games are sucessful for different reasons. For example, Neptunia was poignant at the time for its meta-commentary on RPGs, overused tropes and videogames in general. In reality, the gameplay is quite lacking, even on the remake, and the story gets old pretty fast, becoming a victim of the tropes it parodies. Although, it is important to note that the remake was rewritten, while the original had a more interesting and fresh story. Nekopara's success has a lot to owe to its short length, cheap price, beautiful art by Sayori and most of all, the E-mote system (whatever you may call it). That is, having the characters move and breathe, as if they were really alive inside our very screens. But beautiful art, a cool story and characters...blah, blah, blah, none of that matters. What matters is memes. No matter how good or bad Neptunia was at the time, it became popular because of its almost cult following in communities like 4chan, where many gamers for the first time felt that they were playing a game made for them specifically, as people, through the use of constant forth wall breaks. They felt that the characters resembled them in certain ways and it helped strengthen this bond between them. Over time, I'd say that Neptunia de-evolved into mere yuri bait, but I risk triggering the anger of many fans. Nekopara instantly became known as "the game where you can fuck cute catgirls". To those people who weren't deep enough into otaku culture to know about the existence of bishoujo games, Nekopara might've been their first contact with the genre. And what can I say, it helps that it doesn't beat around the bush with an overcomplicated plot, to the point where it can almost be labeled a "moenukige". Above all, this game is important because it is an escapism fantasy for us humans, who live in a world ruled by cats, giving us the illusion that for once we can rule over the cats. What these games have in common is being poignant at the time, offering something fresh or never-before-seen...but it's difficult to predict that a game will or not spread like wildfire on social media. An example would DDLC, which is innovating in a way because of how it messes with your game files, but it got popular thanks to its shock factor. It also helps that it's short and a free-to-play game. So, the idea of releasing a translation on as many languages as possible isn't exactly worthwhile especially since most people can speak English and most eroge aren't exactly Shakespearan novels either...and while it is important for Japanese developers to take in account the foreign audiences when making their game, they run the risk of adapting the game to fit certain standards or values, robbing them of what made us like them in the first place.

Try changing system locale and the language used by non-unicode programs to Chinese (Simplified). Have you installed the font? If you keep getting this error, it might have to do with your Windows 10 version, the patch is known to have issues in update 1803+. Should also try with both version 1.00 and 1.01 of the game, where you should have 30 and 31 files, respectively, including the patch .exe.

Here you go. http://www.mediafire.com/file/3pk2e8cr93cbob4/魔法使之夜.rar Just to confirm the content:

The NTR variant, so none of the above.